2011-12 Annual Report - Partners in School Innovation

Why Our Work MattersPublic education lies at the heart of Americandemocracy and economic vitality. According to aMcKinsey Quarterly (April, 2009) report, gaps in U.S.education achievement have affected GDP more severelythan have all recessions since the 1970s. Yet, publicschools here rank far below many nations with whomwe compete in the global economy, and our systemsfor resourcing them leave families living in poverty ata distinct disadvantage. Our nation’s demographicsare rapidly changing, and we are seeing a new majorityof underserved youth in even more public schoolclassrooms. With this, the room for optimism about howpublic education can foster opportunity diminishes.At Partners, we believe that a quality education is acivil right, not something that should be determinedby zip code. Our work matters because the achievementgap persists. Significant gaps for Latino and African-American students, for example, are still evidentin virtually every measure of achievement. Despitedecades of public policy aimed at improving the overallachievement of our most challenged students, researchcontinues to show that on average, low-income studentsof color remain up to four years behind their peers.We therefore target the fundamental building block ofliteracy in the lowest-performing schools because weknow that literacy challenges evident in the elementaryyears often trigger a cycle of academic failure. In fact,school and life success can now largely be measuredby whether or not a student can read proficiently bythird grade. Research reveals that while 16 percentof children who do not hit the third-grade readingproficiency mark fail to graduate from high school, thisfigure rises to 31 percent for African-American studentsand to 33 percent for Latino students. These are exactlythe students Partners is committed to serving.“State and local governments areoverwhelmed by social costs directly linked toour short-comings in the classroom—whetherit is prisons, welfare, other social services orsimply the lower lifetime earnings of people wholack the education needed to compete in theglobal economy.”– Arne DuncanU.S. Secretary of Education8,465 Students84% Students of Color 51% English Learners 82% Free and Reduced LunchQuality Education Is A Civil Right4 Partners In School Innovation